Valve IP Addresses connecting to my computer?

[Assassin's Weed]

So I installed Zone Alarm on my PC, and have enabled steam to connect to the internet. Everything is working but I notice that zone alarm is blocking several IP addresses. I looked up the IP Addresses and they are all associated with valve.

I was just wondering why they are connecting, and what they are doing?

IP Addresses in question:
72.165.61.188
208.64.200.202
208.64.200.205
72.165.61.174
72.165.61.175
162.254.192.18
162.254.192.16
162.254.192.20
162.254.192.21
162.254.192.17
208.64.203.26
208.64.203.16
199.229.227.122
162.254.196.21
162.254.196.23
162.254.196.18
162.254.196.17
162.254.196.22
162.254.196.20
208.64.200.201
208.64.200.203
208.64.201.196
208.64.200.137
208.64.201.176
208.64.200.204
72.165.61.187
72.165.61.186
72.165.61.185

Why does valve need over 20 IP addresses connected to my computer?

[gleofrocga]

Games that are downloading, store pages, store videos, community hub images, etc aswell as the steamwebhelper process probably leaching onto to stuff.

[Satoru]

Steam will scan its content servers to see which one is the most optimal for you

[Assassin's Weed]

alright, I already let them through. Was just wondering why there were so many.

Thanks guys

[Kargor]

Hm... are they actually connecting FROM the outside, or is Steam connecting TO them?

Because if they are trying to connect from the outside, that wouldn't work on my site as I didn't know that Steam had incoming connections so nothing gets forwarded. Yet, my Steam seems to work reasonably fine...

[Assassin's Weed]

They were coming from the outside I think...

[Assassin's Weed]

It says outgoing connection using UDP, it automatically blocked it. Downloads still worked as well. I was installing Dragon Age Origins and it completely downloaded at full speed.

[Wh1ppet]

Assassin's Weed の投稿を引用：

It says outgoing connection using UDP, it automatically blocked it. Downloads still worked as well. I was installing Dragon Age Origins and it completely downloaded at full speed.

Outgoing is not Steam servers connecting to you. That's your system running through the list of Steam servers to test the connections to them. You can actually change that behavior in Steam by going into the downloads section of the Steam Settings and picking which server you want it to use, in which case it will just try to use the selected server and not test every server on your half of the planet.